Role of prostacyclin in pulmonary hypertension

Date of Acceptance: 11/12/2014 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC BY-4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Prostacyclin is a powerful cardioprotective hormone released by the endothelium of all blood vessels. Prostacyclin exists in equilibrium with other vasoactive hormones and a disturbance in the balance of these factors leads to cardiovascular disease including pulmonary arterial hypertension. Since it’s discovery in the 1980s concerted efforts have been made to make the best therapeutic utility of prostacyclin, particularly in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension. This has centred on working out the detailed pharmacology of prostacyclin and then synthesising new molecules based on its structure that are more stable or more easily tolerated. In addition, newer molecules have been developed that are not analogues of prostacyclin but that target the receptors that prostacyclin activates. Prostacyclin and related drugs have without doubt revolutionised the treatment and management of pulmonary arterial hypertension but are seriously limited by side effects within the systemic circulation. With the dawn of nanomedicine and targeted drug or stem cell delivery systems it will, in the very near future, be possible to make new formulations of prostacyclin that can evade the systemic circulation allowing for safe delivery to the pulmonary vessels. In this way, the full therapeutic potential of prostacyclin can be realised opening the possibility that pulmonary arterial hypertension will become, if not curable, a chronic manageable disease that is no longer fatal. This review discusses these and other issues relating to prostacyclin and its use in pulmonary arterial hypertensionPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Process Control in IC Manufacturing with Thermal Waves

In today’s semiconductor market, manufacturers face a daunting challenge. Product concepts evolve rapidly in response to rapidly changing markets while design rules, i.e., device geometries, become increasingly smaller and wafers become larger. Devices must run faster, reliability must improve and the resultant increasing complexity in IC design and fabrication technology intensifies the need for tighter controls of process variables. To compete effectively in this market, manufacturers must improve both product development and product manufacturing processes

Predictive impact of rare genomic copy number variations in siblings of individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Identification of genetic biomarkers associated with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) could improve recurrence prediction for families with a child with ASD. Here, we describe clinical microarray findings for 253 longitudinally phenotyped ASD families from the Baby Siblings Research Consortium (BSRC), encompassing 288 infant siblings. By age 3, 103 siblings (35.8%) were diagnosed with ASD and 54 (18.8%) were developing atypically. Thirteen siblings have copy number variants (CNVs) involving ASD-relevant genes: 6 with ASD, 5 atypically developing, and 2 typically developing. Within these families, an ASD-related CNV in a sibling has a positive predictive value (PPV) for ASD or atypical development of 0.83; the Simons Simplex Collection of ASD families shows similar PPVs. Polygenic risk analyses suggest that common genetic variants may also contribute to ASD. CNV findings would have been pre-symptomatically predictive of ASD or atypical development in 11 (7%) of the 157 BSRC siblings who were eventually diagnosed clinically

The hand of Homo naledi

A nearly complete right hand of an adult hominin was recovered from the Rising Star cave system, South Africa. Based on associated hominin material, the bones of this hand are attributed to Homo naledi. This hand reveals a long, robust thumb and derived wrist morphology that is shared with Neandertals and modern humans, and considered adaptive for intensified manual manipulation. However, the finger bones are longer and more curved than in most australopiths, indicating frequent use of the hand during life for strong grasping during locomotor climbing and suspension. These markedly curved digits in combination with an otherwise human-like wrist and palm indicate a significant degree of climbing, despite the derived nature of many aspects of the hand and other regions of the postcranial skeleton in H. naledi

Differentiation and fiber type-specific activity of a muscle creatine kinase intronic enhancer

Background: Hundreds of genes, including muscle creatine kinase (MCK), are differentially expressed in fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers, but the fiber type-specific regulatory mechanisms are not well understood. Results: Modulatory region 1 (MR1) is a 1-kb regulatory region within MCK intron 1 that is highly active in terminally differentiating skeletal myocytes in vitro. A MCK small intronic enhancer (MCK-SIE) containing a paired E-box/myocyte enhancer factor 2 (MEF2) regulatory motif resides within MR1. The SIE's transcriptional activity equals that of the extensively characterized 206-bp MCK 5'-enhancer, but the MCK-SIE is flanked by regions that can repress its activity via the individual and combined effects of about 15 different but highly conserved 9- to 24-bp sequences. ChIP and ChIP-Seq analyses indicate that the SIE and the MCK 5'-enhancer are occupied by MyoD, myogenin and MEF2. Many other E-boxes located within or immediately adjacent to intron 1 are not occupied by MyoD or myogenin. Transgenic analysis of a 6.5-kb MCK genomic fragment containing the 5'-enhancer and proximal promoter plus the 3.2-kb intron 1, with and without MR1, indicates that MR1 is critical for MCK expression in slow- and intermediate-twitch muscle fibers (types I and IIa, respectively), but is not required for expression in fast-twitch muscle fibers (types IIb and IId). Conclusions: In this study, we discovered that MR1 is critical for MCK expression in slow- and intermediate-twitch muscle fibers and that MR1's positive transcriptional activity depends on a paired E-box MEF2 site motif within a SIE. This is the first study to delineate the DNA controls for MCK expression in different skeletal muscle fiber types

PI controller tuning for load disturbance rejection using constrained optimization

© 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. In this paper, a simple and effective PI controller tuning method is presented. To take both performance requirements and robustness issues into consideration, the design technique is based on optimization of load disturbance rejection with a constraint either on the gain margin or phase margin. In addition, a simplified form of the resulting tuning formulae is obtained for first order plus dead time models. To demonstrate the ability of the proposed tuning technique in dealing with a wide range of plants, simulation results for several examples, including integrating, non-minimum phase and long dead time models, are provided

Stellar winds from Massive Stars

We review the various techniques through which wind properties of massive stars - O stars, AB supergiants, Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs), Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars and cool supergiants - are derived. The wind momentum-luminosity relation (e.g. Kudritzki et al. 1999) provides a method of predicting mass-loss rates of O stars and blue supergiants which is superior to previous parameterizations. Assuming the theoretical sqrt(Z) metallicity dependence, Magellanic Cloud O star mass-loss rates are typically matched to within a factor of two for various calibrations. Stellar winds from LBVs are typically denser and slower than equivalent B supergiants, with exceptional mass-loss rates during giant eruptions Mdot=10^-3 .. 10^-1 Mo/yr (Drissen et al. 2001). Recent mass-loss rates for Galactic WR stars indicate a downward revision of 2-4 relative to previous calibrations due to clumping (e.g. Schmutz 1997), although evidence for a metallicity dependence remains inconclusive (Crowther 2000). Mass-loss properties of luminous (> 10^5 Lo) yellow and red supergiants from alternative techniques remain highly contradictory. Recent Galactic and LMC results for RSG reveal a large scatter such that typical mass-loss rates lie in the range 10^-6 .. 10^-4 Mo/yr, with a few cases exhibiting 10^-3 Mo/yr.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, Review paper to appear in Proc `The influence of binaries on stellar population studies', Brussels, Aug 2000 (D. Vanbeveren ed.), Kluwe

Low frequency radio properties of the z>5 quasar population

Optically luminous quasars at z > 5 are important probes of super-massive black hole (SMBH) formation. With new and future radio facilities, the discovery of the brightest low-frequency radio sources in this epoch would be an important new probe of cosmic reionization through 21-cm absorption experiments. In this work, we systematically study the low-frequency radio properties of a sample of 115 known spectroscopically confirmed z > 5 quasars using the second data release of the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) Two Metre Sky survey (LoTSS-DR2), reaching noise levels of ∼80 µJy beam−1 (at 144 MHz) over an area of ∼ 5720 deg2 . We find that 41 sources (36%) are detected in LoTSS-DR2 at > 2σ significance and we explore the evolution of their radio properties (power, spectral index, and radio loudness) as a function of redshift and rest-frame ultra-violet properties. We obtain a median spectral index of −0.29+0.10 −0.09 by stacking 93 quasars using LoTSS-DR2 and Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimetres (FIRST) data at 1.4 GHz, in line with observations of quasars at z < 3. We compare the radio loudness of the high-z quasar sample to a lower-z quasar sample at z ∼ 2 and find that the two radio loudness distributions are consistent with no evolution, although the low number of high-z quasars means that we cannot rule out weak evolution. Furthermore, we make a first order empirical estimate of the z = 6 quasar radio luminosity function, which is used to derive the expected number of high-z sources that will be detected in the completed LoTSS survey. This work highlights the fact that new deep radio observations can be a valuable tool in selecting high-z quasar candidates for follow-up spectroscopic observations by decreasing contamination of stellar dwarfs and reducing possible selection biases introduced by strict colour cuts

Gamma (γ) tocopherol upregulates peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) gamma (γ) expression in SW 480 human colon cancer cell lines

BACKGROUND: Tocopherols are lipid soluble antioxidants that exist as eight structurally different isoforms. The intake of γ-tocopherol is higher than α-tocopherol in the average US diet. The clinical results of the effects of vitamin E as a cancer preventive agent have been inconsistent. All published clinical trials with vitamin E have used α-tocopherol. Recent epidemiological, experimental and molecular studies suggest that γ-tocopherol may be a more potent chemopreventive form of vitamin E compared to the more-studied α-tocopherol. γ-Tocopherol exhibits differences in its ability to detoxify nitrogen dioxide, growth inhibitory effects on selected cancer cell lines, inhibition of neoplastic transformation in embryonic fibroblasts, and inhibition of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) activity in macrophages and epithelial cells. Peroxisome proliferator activator receptor γ (PPARγ) is a promising molecular target for colon cancer prevention. Upregulation of PPARγ activity is anticarcinogenic through its effects on downstream genes that affect cellular proliferation and apoptosis. The thiazolidine class of drugs are powerful PPARγ ligands. Vitamin E has structural similarity to the thiazolidine, troglitazone. In this investigation, we tested the effects of both α and γ tocopherol on the expression of PPARγ mRNA and protein in SW 480 colon cancer cell lines. We also measured the intracellular concentrations of vitamin E in SW 480 colon cancer cell lines. RESULTS: We have discovered that the α and γ isoforms of vitamin E upregulate PPARγ mRNA and protein expression in the SW480 colon cancer cell lines. γ-Tocopherol is a better modulator of PPARγ expression than α-tocopherol at the concentrations tested. Intracellular concentrations increased as the vitamin E concentration added to the media was increased. Further, γ-tocopherol-treated cells have higher intracellular tocopherol concentrations than those treated with the same concentrations of α-tocopherol. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that both α and γ tocopherol can upregulate the expression of PPARγ which is considered an important molecular target for colon cancer chemoprevention. We show that the expression of PPARγ mRNA and protein are increased and these effects are more pronounced with γ-tocopherol. γ-Tocopherol's ability to upregulate PPARγ expression and achieve higher intracellular concentrations in the colonic tissue may be relevant to colon cancer prevention. We also show that the intracellular concentrations of γ-tocopherol are several fold higher than α-tocopherol. Further work on other colon cancer cell lines are required to quantitate differences in the ability of these forms of vitamin E to induce apoptosis, suppress cell proliferation and act as PPAR ligands as well as determine their effects in conjunction with other chemopreventive agents. Upregulation of PPARγ by the tocopherols and in particular by γ-tocopherol may have relevance not only to cancer prevention but also to the management of inflammatory and cardiovascular disorders

A preliminary assessment on use of biochar as a soil additive for reducing the soil-to-plant update of cesium isotopes in radioactively contaminated environments

peer-reviewedA series of Kd tracer batch experiments were conducted to assess the absorptive-desorption properties of Biochar as a potential agent to selectively sequester labile soil Cs or otherwise help reduce the uptake of Cs isotopes into plants. A parallel experiment was conducted for strontium. Fine-grained fractionated Woodlands tree Biochar was found to have a relatively high affinity for Cs ions (Kd > 100) in comparison with untreated coral soil (Kd < 10) collected from the Marshall Islands. The Biochar material also contains an abundance of K (and Mg). These findings support a hypothesis that the addition of Biochar as a soil amendment may provide a simple yet effective method for reducing the soil-to-plant transfer of Cs isotopes in contaminated environments